Fig. 1

Overview of specifying a config. A Life cycle flow diagram for a modeled tick population. Solid arrows represent interstadial development between life stages or egg laying. The dashed downward-curving arrows represent mortality. B The config code for this tick life cycle. Each arrow in the diagram is a transition object in the life_cycle. In this case the model would start with 10 adults and run for 365 days. For brevity some code is omitted with “...”. C The full code for the first transition marked with an * in 1A. This indicates that the transition from egg to larva is a duration transition whose rate is an exponential function of temperature. This function has parameter values provided for a and b. We specify that the formal argument x should get values from predictor data labeled as temp—this assumes that we are working with a config containing such predictor data (preds argument). D The full code for the second transition marked with ** in 1A. This indicates that every day eggs are developing into larvae they have a 1% mortality rate